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Show I Child Descended in 5 Direct Lines From John Sappington I Ii T T rcally didn't make a lot of dif- ference to'littlo Fern Sapping-ton Sapping-ton of St. Louis, just who was , ; giving that thrlllingly big party to ; which she was invited on the 29th of , i the past month or even why they wero ' JJpfr. giving it. The most signiflcant detail Y of the event was that she had all the I ice cream she could comfortably dis- pose of and "a dreat big lot of chil- I dren to play wif." I That Fern was hoisted to the s'houl- ders of the tallest man there to b'e I looked at by 300 assembled guests and I applauded and praised, was a moment I of glory wholly -agreeable to the 5- year-old miss, but the reason for the singular honor did not in the least concern her pretty little golden head. Expericnco had profited her but lit- tie4, though of one thing she is possi- tive that is her name is Fern Sapping- ton. It seemed to be the surname that gave her prestige among the throng of guests, though she could sec no rca-r rca-r son why "Sappington" should cause 'f any comment and she frankly confessed, con-fessed, in effect, that she agreed with Juliet in her theory of the nothing- i ness in a name, and that pleasantness ( . or unpleasantness of intonation has no L relation to the olfactory nerve., "Sappington" indeed was the feature . r that distinguished Fern from the rest i of the guests at that "big party." Not that there were no other Sappingtons present The little girl just has signal claim to that name. The party at which there was such an abundance of iced cream and children chil-dren was an old-fashioned gathering of an ancient clan. Under the roof of ; the United Railways Hall there began, to assemble at noon the sons and. daughters, and these sons' sons and . , daughters' daughters of some of Amer- lea's staunchest pioneers and St. I ; Louis' most dauntless settlers. There were 2,000 who might have claimed ' eligibility to that clan, but those 2,000 ; wero scattered about the country, some 1' far from their pioneer fathers' chosen state, and so those who could came to join hands with kin and mingle with ! ; the people through whose veins ran c tho blood common to all. Communion Among- Kin. It was an assemblage uncommon to ; - the social order of today, when the course of life runs too swiftly to permit per-mit of the old communion among kin. Nowadays one docs not trouble to ' "look up one's kinfolks," and, indeed, there is more often that tendency- toward to-ward subduing them in the background, back-ground, for multitudes of relatives are ! ' no longer fashionable in the same sense they were two or three generations genera-tions ago. Among the men at that family re-; re-; union there was a marked absence of the millionaire, the speculator, the broker, but few had done any plung- ; ; ing, and few were rich in worldly means. There was that quality of ; solidity amongst them all that spoke through the veins of the men to whom the very gathering itself was a tribute. Many of the clan met for the first i time and it was with no mean pride that babies were held aloft and girls and boys were stood in line to be re-! re-! i marked upon at the likeness to some ! venerable head of the family. The , worthy traits of the men-children ; were exploited and the thrift and i homely virtues of the girls were prais- : ed before their gratified possessors. ; There were as many interested ears listening to various phases of "family ; history" as ever were gathered to delight de-light the "family historian," which no clan is without. Now and again one would hoar: ' "Lindsay is certainly the image of his great-great uncle, Lindsay Long, for I whom he was named, and I am sure he must inherit his taste for architecture ; from that source, for he plays with his blocks from morning until night and builds tho cleverest things out of , ; them." : Another will claim that James really ' ', cannot be blamed for his youthful : habit of running away, since he came I ', directly from that geiilleman, Capt. HK James Mackay, whose love of explor- Hr n ing led him to cross the Mississippi M' river before any of his English-speak- j ing compatriots, and set him on a fu- tile quest of the South Sea in Missouri ' and the Rockies. : I It was such names as Sappington : and Mackay and Long and tho things ) for which these names stand that in- H; spired the gathering of the clan. H'; Monument to Pathfinder. I ' That these names will live, has been : k made an assurance by the Daughters H . of 1S12, who have erected a monument Hi, to their valor. This monument is cast !H : in the form of two bronze tablets, on H ; ' one of which is inscribed a tribute in .H bas relief, to the "Pathfinders Who H Won the "West," on the other tho "Roll H i of Fame." These tablets hang In the I fea Jefferson Memorial in St. Louis, a wit-Bft wit-Bft nc5s to e deeds of valor and bravery HET of those men whose great vision saw II in our Western country the possibility Is of an earthly clysium, and were cour- ageous enough to do their part in making mak-ing that plysium a reality. There arc but 111 names on the tablet, tab-let, names of men who came to St. Louis before the year 1826, and of that number, six of tho inscribed pioneers pio-neers are the forefathers of tho clan whose celebration commemorated their deeds. It was in anticipation of the changing of these tablets'that the'fam-ily the'fam-ily convened at this time, to meet and know those of common blood. Each name that has been engraved upon the tablet of bronze has been validated by the Society of the Daughters Daugh-ters of 1S12, and tho history of each name, the marriage, the descendants, and all the deeds worthy of recording has been written upon parchment and incased in brass cylinder-cartons, scaled and deposited in the archives of Jefferson Memorial in Forest Park. The contents of these cylinders are likewise a tribute to the family historian, his-torian, whose efforts to write an honest hon-est and accurate history of each name required months of . research and study. The honor belonging to the historian of the names of John Sappington, William Wil-liam Lindsay Long, Lawrence Long, John Long, Capt. James Mackay and James Wilton Thomas belong to the two descendants of all of these pioneers. pio-neers. Mrs. Fannie Long Walsh and Mrs. Iona Berry Wilson, the great-great-granddaughters of Capt. John Long. These women hnve more names inscribed in-scribed upon the bronze tablet than any other pioneer descendant, and it is with just pride that they devoted eighteen months to recording the his-' torics of their ancestors, who were of such great significance in the buiiq;ng' of St. Louis and the surrounding coun-' try. Romance ot 1 lie Wilderness. Each history is a romance such as Sir Wnltor Rro(l rlnlf ni,,i - '. .. v.v..,0,tLUu .u iiurraie. A romance of thrilling combats with the rcdmen whose chiefs were gods of the rivers and woods and plains; of struggles with inclement elements when the only shelter was a canvas-covered canvas-covered wagon; of seemingly insurmountable insur-mountable difficulties presented by tho topography of the land; of loves that grew, stanch and pure, by virtue of the struggle common to all. Each romance, pent up in a brass cylinder, awaits but to be opened by the remote peoples of the future to bo devoured with eager thirst for the archaic, and retold in a language that shall be the outgrowth of the merging of all race color a reversion from Babel to the original tongue. It was in 1795 when St. Louis still hoisted the tricolor over her garrisons that Capt John Mackay, the first of the clan' to set foot on Missouri soil, came to help in the building of the future fu-ture metropolis of the Middle West. His title was acquired during the Revolutionary warwhen he came from tho Highlands of Scotland to lead a North Carolina troop In our splendid fight for freedom. Mackay was still in the sprightly 30s when he made his way West of the Mississippi and was full of the ambition for romance, both in the conquest of discovery and the conquest of hearts, for he sought to find the South Sea somewhere in Missouri Mis-souri or In the Rockies, hunting Noivi and West for that body of sun-warmed water, but he only came back to discover dis-cover a Southern beauty, Miss Isabella Isa-bella Long, for whom he was content to abandon his youthful ambition to find tho South Sea in America, and settle in a log cabin somewhere in tho Mississippi Valley river bottom. He was the first English-speaking man to cross the Father of Waters, but tho French and Spanish tongue, which alone was heard in this country at the time, held no mystery for him. Mackay had received a liberal education educa-tion in his youth and French and Spanish were as well known to him as his native lanjuage. . Was Acting Governor. Tho gallant Captain was as fond of politics as he was of discovery and took an actlvo part in the making of early Missouri laws. Although he never nev-er reached the distinction of becoming governor, ho sat in the governor's ehair during an absence of that leader, and acted in the placo of Zeno Tru-deau, Tru-deau, governor of the Louisiana Territory. Terri-tory. In the year following tho arrival of Mackay, there came to St. Louis in 1796 Capt. John Long, the charming daughter of whoni was soon to. put an end to the wandering of the conquest-loving conquest-loving young officer and adventurer. Capt. Long was. a blue-blooded American, "a Virginia gentleman, suh!" He was born in that state in 1755, and doubtless it was the natural nat-ural suggestion of the chief produce of his state that inspired him to command com-mand a vessel plying through Atlantic waters from Virginia to Liverpool with cargoes of tobacco, and to coach the. Englishman in the use of the smoking, weed. Long was twice eligible to the title "Captain," first having acquired it on tho sea, being captain of his craft for five years, and again when ho helped to steer tho course of tho revolutionary war. Elizabeth Bennett! of Wales agreed to perpetuate his line,' and, by her, Long had two sons, whose names arc beside his own on the Roll of Fame, and a third, whose early death at tho' hands of tho Indians, cut short his ambitions am-bitions to help in tho building of St. Louis. It was the oldxaptain who begat the father of the father of tho faiher of Mrs. Walsh and Mrs, Wilson, whoso romantic accounts of their groat grandslre is now buried in the archives of historical Jefferson Memorial. Lindsay Long, like his father, was wedded to yar and water beforo ho re nounced them to "wed Elizabeth Sappington, Sap-pington, who came at a later date. Lindsay fought valiantly in tho war of 1812 against tho red foe, whose determination de-termination to thwart the pale-faced invader was brought to such a sanguinary san-guinary conclusion. Previous to his warrior career, Lindsay built, in 1S07 that historic manse, "White Haven," where Gen. Grant courted and married mar-ried his chosen one Julia Dent. Tho old house still stands near Gen. Grant's own cabin, out on the Gravois road, and no doubt, but that the general gen-eral found it conveniently situated to his ardent heart, for many a path was trodden between the cabin" and the mnnsc before the marriage'day joined tho two. The First Iron 2fnil. "White Haven" was built with wood-on wood-on spikes in the place of the more modern nnils of steel, but, later; Lindsay Lind-say Long built a house for himself, ir which he drove the first Iron nail to come into use In the country. Ho fashioned them himself out of tho metal in a crude, square shape, but they were found far more, satisfactory, SaV X"- ' ' V- .lut't j5uGSa- &ffxtr Timhujl. Il '. . - V'. SfppmroA J6 3G fiTWfP and his nail business might have brought him a fortune had he not preferred pre-ferred to explore rather than sit at a trade. His explorations profited him and the county much, for it was he who first went across the Meramec river, in 1S18, and there, on an agreeable site surveyed and laid out tho town of Fenton, which ho named in honor of his grandmother, Elizabeth Fenton, of tho carl's illustrious family. Lawrence Long, another son of tho Capt. John, wandered somewhat away from tho Mississippi, pushing still fur ther West, until he was halted by the Missouri river. There, on its banks, he was content to settle ,and built up around him the town of Chesterfield, twenty-five miles out on what is now the Olive Street road, Lawrence was wise enough to see the possibilities of making the river do his work, and so he it was who had the first lumber mills in Missouri, from which came the level hoards that supplanted the old logs in tho first SL Louis homes and shops. Lawrence also built up a furniture fur-niture business, which outgrew his capacity for production.. From these pioneer men of fighting and warrior-like spirits, there still is-sues is-sues fighting blood. In this war for IH democracy there arc many descend-ants descend-ants of the old Captain of the Revolu- jH tion and his sons of 1812, and his grandsons of the civil war. Amon f them are Will Slater of Ferguson, Mof jH who Is in the rank and file of the Fifth regiment Another is Edgar Ferguson of Webster Groves, who is flying in the Aviation Corps, and his twin sister, Miss Edith Ferguson, who has sought jH her. work in France under the symbol of the Red Cross. Arthur Long of De- tral blood in the "Fighting Fifth." Another of the clan came to St, LouIb in 1805. It was John Sapping-ton; Sapping-ton; and, unwilling that his name should die, he brought with him seven-teen seven-teen children to carry it on. Sappington was born in Maryland, but he pledged his allegiance to Ken- jH tucky, where he married and reared a part of the seventeen who were to jH 'bear on his name. The lure of the Louisiana Territory jH must have been very strong in his veins too strong to resist, in spite of his family, for one day, he told his wife to pack up the lares ct penates while h3 went out to obtain hardy beasts and sturdy wagons. When lie returned home with animals and can- jH vass-topped spring wagons, he bade his wife and their seventeen get in, and sought the land that had lured him to jH qu.it Lexington and find the wilderness. At the time Sappington arrived in St Louis county there were but forty white- families within that district. His greatest contribution to the state was to increase. its population, for all of the children, under the invigorating in-fluenco in-fluenco of the woods and open plains of Missouri's health-giving country, lived to a marriageable age, and not a one but who found a life compan-ion compan-ion and reared families that upheld his ' own parents' ideals. Most of these Sappingtons remained jH in Missouri, content with their far-sighted far-sighted father's choice. As there must be a politician and a jH preacher in every family, so there was jH in that of John-the-fathcr-of-the-sev-entccn. It was John, Jr.. who followed 'H his father's teudency to engage in pol-itics pol-itics (the father had been a member of the Madison County House before quit-ting quit-ting his home state). He was best known by the country people of me 'H surrounding county as "Uncle Jack" IH Sappington, and, aside from his anibl- Hons as a political leader, he had sonio very sano ideas regarding farming. ilH "Uncle Jack" will be remembered by the sonB of venerable farmers as hav-ing hav-ing the first sanitar' farm iu this state. He showed the people about St. Louis how to farm to the best advan-tage, advan-tage, while his brother Thomas, car-ried car-ried on the plan by installing the first flour mill in the county. Coarse bread was no longer a necessity when the jH scientific farmer, Uncle Jack, and bis iH miller-brother Tom began their opera- jH lions in Missouri. It was but a few years after his ar- j rival in St. Louis that Sappington's wife passed away, and when 3ho was jH buried the old pionoor sat at her grave all day and set watch at night becauso j he feared that the Indians would dis-inter dis-inter her body and scalp it, such wero j the practiced outrages. of the umcs. The graveyard in which many of tho members of tho Sappington family iH were buried still remains on the Gra-vois Gra-vois road, awaiting others of the clan that shall be put to rest therein from jH year to year. H It was from John Sappington, th jH loyal pathfinder of the Middle West, il that tho li'no descended to the Uttla girl, Fern Sappington, who was raised aloft for the many kinsmen to see at that family gathering last month. Hoc generic history ia a jremrkablo one. j |